This Thing That Builds Our Dreams
by HecateA
Summary: Generations of pureblood women before her have agreed to live black-and-white and grey lives. Andromeda will not be one of them. Written for Romance Awareness Day 5: You can't see colours until you meet your soulmate. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjooooy! Written for The Quidditch League and stacked with the 31 Days of Soulmate!AUs Day 5: You can't see colours until you meet your soulmate.

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Disownment

* * *

**Wigtown Wanderers, Chaser 2**

**Prompt:** Who Wants to Live Forever (Queen)

**Additional prompts:** [Plot point] Disowning someone or being disowned, [Colour] Royal purple, [Word] Drug

**Lyric used: **"This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us."

**Word count: **1252

* * *

**This Thing That Builds Our Dreams**

_There's no time for us_

_There's no place for us_

_What is this thing that builds our dreams_

_Yet slips away from us?_

…

_There's no chance for us_

_It's all decided for us_

_This world has only one_

_Sweet moment set aside for us_

—Who Wants to Live Forever, Queen

Druella Black fondly remembered when she'd been Druella Rosier as she ran a brush through Andromeda's curls. Her own mother had helped her get ready for her engagement party back then, which was why it had been so important for Druella to help Bellatrix prepare for hers—and now, Andromeda.

"My dear," Druella said, kissing the top of her daughter's head. "You seem distracted."

"Sorry, Mother," Andromeda said, shaking her head.

"I was nervous before my betrothal announcement too," Druella confided, "but your father and I had such a happy life…"

Andromeda nodded, her eyes fixed on her own reflection in the mirror before them but with a strange look to them—as if she was looking at a stranger.

"I suppose I am nervous," Andromeda said. She swallowed, which drew attention to the necklace at her throat and the intricate lacework of the dress that crossed over her chest.

"You have met Mr Malfoy before, lovely," Druella said. "He's a good boy from a good family, you know that…"

"I do," Andromeda said, "but that… that makes things a bit more… difficult, in a way."

"Whatever do you mean, dearest?" Druella frowned, resting a hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"Well, we've met before," Andromeda said carefully, "and I… Well, you see. I'm still quite young as well. And there's… well, waiting has some advantages to it."

"Waiting for what?" Druella asked. "To get married?"

"I know Mr Malfoy, Mother, I met him as a child and that didn't make the colours in the world come. I know he's not my soulmate. What if I marry him and then I never meet the real one?"

"Now, now, Andromeda," Druella tried to reason. "You're long past the age of fairy tales now. Soulmates are exceedingly rare…"

"But still real," she said quietly.

"Maybe so, but that doesn't make them necessary."

Druella played with one of her daughter's curls.

"Plenty of us live long, happy lives with good partners without seeing colour," Druella said. "That isn't necessary, either."

"It feels like it would be nice," Andromeda said quietly. "Why promise forever to someone who can't give you that? I don't even think I'd want to _live _forever without…"

"Many things _would_ be nice, my dear," Druella said. She dropped the lock of hair and patted Andromeda's shoulder. The dress she wore—a new garment, custom-made for the occasion—was soft under her touch. "But one thing is for sure: _you _look more than nice, my sweet. You look beautiful. And everyone at the party will think so, too—colour or no colour. I shall leave you to finish getting ready."

As Druella made her way towards the door, her daughter spat out the words, "Royal purple."

She froze and turned around slowly. "What was that, dear?"

"Royal purple," Andromeda sighed, taking a deep breath. Her bottom lip quivered. "I've seen it. It was the first colour I ever saw. It may not be important to you, but I want to see it again."

Druella whipped around the room and circled back to her daughter, grabbing her face with one hand. Andromeda winced and barely stopped herself from crying out.

"I do not know who this boy is," Druella said. "Nor do I know what you think purple is or what it means. But forget you ever saw it. It and all these other supposed colours."

"I can't," Andromeda said. "It's… it's like a drug for your eyes Mother, it's beautiful." Her voice caught in her throat. "Please…"

"No," Druella said, digging in her fingertips. "Listen to me. We have worked hard to secure this match for you and he will bring much good to this family. You will not disrespect this, nor will you do anything to jeopardize it. Am I clear?"

Andromeda didn't answer and Druella felt her jaw lock.

"Andromeda Black," she snapped. "Am I clear?"

Tears welled up in her daughter's eyes, and Druella would later realize, far too late, that they were angry—not sad. Determined and resilient, not abandoning.

"It was too beautiful. I refuse to believe this world has only one sweet moment set aside for us," her daughter managed to utter.

Druella dropped her.

"I'll hear no more of this," Druella said warningly. "Now let me tell you what you will do. You will finish getting ready. You will come downstairs looking as beautiful and impeccable as we have made you. You will honour your family name, and you will be as charming and gracious and lovely as I know you can be. You will delight your husband-to-be and he will be grateful for the chance to have you. And then you will go on to be just as lovely of a wife and give this man a beautiful family or you will have no part to play in the one you currently find yourself in. Understood?"

Andromeda didn't answer.

"Andromeda," Druella snapped. "Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Andromeda said coolly, returning to her usual poised and quiet self.

Another thing that Druella would realize later—the next day, actually, when she kept her word and blasted her daughter off the family tree and rushed to her sister-in-law's house to do the same at Grimmauld Place—was that hearing and listening were two entirely different things. And Andromeda had chosen one.

* * *

"Andra?" he asked, opening his door and struggling to process the sight of her on his parents' doorstep. "Andra, we're… we're so far from London, what are you doing here?"

Andromeda shook her head and pointed to the trim around his parents' front door.

"Pine green," she said. She pointed to the hem of the skirt she was wearing and then to her blouse. "Charcoal. Navy blue." She looked up to him and pointed to the sweater he'd pulled on when he'd heard the knock at the door and had come down from his bedroom before the others woke up. "And that's burgundy—it suits you beautifully. But my favourite's always been royal purple…"

"Andra," Ted gasped. "You can see them…"

"I don't just love you, Ted," Andromeda said. When she said it, her shoulders relaxed. It was as if an extraordinary amount of pressure had been taken off her shoulders. "You're my soulmate."

Ted looked at her, struggling to process it all.

"Andra," he said. "Oh, Andra…"

He stepped onto the front porch, closing the door behind him. Immediately, her arms were around his neck and she'd pushed him against the side of the house. His hands found her waist and he picked her up. Her legs locked around his hips, and when they pulled away she rested her forehead against his chest.

"But what about your family?" Ted asked. "You know what they'd do if they..."

"You're my soulmate," she said quietly. "Let them do their worst."

* * *

And after all of this, it's only fair that when the baby was a few hours old—sleeping soundly against Ted's bare chest as an exhausted Andromeda watched with a smile on her face—Nymphadora's hair turned a spunky purple colour to join all the other shades and hues in the world.

Well, once the Healers came back and ran some tests to confirm that the baby was a Metamorphmagus and that this was perfectly normal, of course.

_Then _it only felt right.

* * *

**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts; Harmony of Souls Eternal

**Individual Challenge(s): **Slytherin MC (x2); Bow Before the Blacks; Brush; Seeds; Tiny Terror; Old Shoes; Trope it Up C (Secret Relationship); Themes & Things A (Family); Themes & Things B (Prejudice); True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; Real Family; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Representation(s): **Soulmate!AU

**Bonus challenge(s): **NA

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Schooner; Obscure

**Word Count: **1682

* * *

_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks

**List (Prompt): **Summer Medium 1 (Arranged Marriage)


End file.
